Prof. Marga Vicedo grew up in Agost (Spain), studied and worked in the United States, and is now teaching at the University of Toronto. She is interested in genetics, evolution, animal research, and child development in the twentieth century. She is also interested in how ideas from biology are used in other fields such as psychology and the social sciences. In the philosophy of science, she has worked on scientific realism, the question of whether our best scientific theories offer us a reliable account of the world. In the history of science, she has worked on several areas: the early history of genetics in the United States; the history of animal behaviour; and the history of views about human instincts, especially the maternal instinct. Her book, The Nature and Nurture of Mother Love: From Imprinting to Attachment in Cold War America (2013) situates scientific views about maternal care and love in their historical context and provides a critical analysis of the ethological theory of attachment behavior.

Currently, She is working on two book-length projects. One is tentatively entitled “The Science of Maternal Instincts in American Society from Darwin to Evolutionary Psychology.” The other, “Historicizing the Science of the Affects: Autism, Emotions, and Gender,” is a historical examination of different views about autism in American society from 1943 to the present

Publications:

The Nature and Nurture of Love: From Imprinting to Attachment in Cold War America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

‘The Secret Lives of Textbooks,” ISIS, (2012) 103: 83-87.

‘Cold War Emotions: Mother Love and The War over Human Nature,’ in Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (eds.), Cold War Social Science. NY: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012, 233-249.

‘Mothers, Machines, And Morals: Harry Harlow’s Work on Primate Love From Lab to Legend’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (2009) 45 (3): 193-218.